SWTOR

[Malakili]

"If you're someone that loves everything an MMO brings to the table, loves the community aspect, loves being able to see other people and say: 'I have better shoulder pads than you do,'

I always knew you could judge a jedi by his shoulder pads. 

"If you are a hardcore, traditional Bioware fan - a Mass Effect or especially Dragon Quest fan.."

lolwut?

[Tannhauser]

Heh.  Never finish the game.  Dude, catasses will have this game finished in two weeks. 

I would have to think even the most casual MMO player would laugh at the bullshit this guy is spouting.

[sam, an eggplant]

How odd, I always thought Bioware made Dragon Age, not Dragon Quest. Well he works there, so I must be wrong.

[Rendakor]

"If you are a hardcore, traditional Bioware fan - a Mass Effect or especially Dragon Quest fan - this is the dream game. It is an RPG forever. It is an RPG that at the speed and pace that I play RPGs as a gamer, five or ten hours a week. I could never finish this game."

Because long grinds to max level are AWESOME.  

Edit: quote tags are hard.

[Musashi]

They have hardcore fans?

[Malakili]

Because long grinds to max level are AWESOME. 

Don't worry, while you're playing 5-10 hours a week, the people playing 16 hours a day will be complaining after the first week or 2 that there "nothing to do."

[Rendakor]

I'm more in the 2nd camp than the 1st, but that still makes his statement retarded.

Edit: fix'd.

[Merusk]

I'm just loling at the whole "five hours a WEEK" thing.   5-10 a week? Even a casual MMOer puts in more time than that when a game first releases.    This is going to be such a trainwreck.

[eldaec]

Is that really true for the second and third million western WoW players?

Not that I honestly think the second and third million are planning to play a star wars game, but they are the bulk of the wallets EA plan to milk.

[Merusk]

I think it's even more true of that 2nd and 3rd million.  Hardcore looks to put in lots of hours up front, grind to cap and then wait it out/ raid, spend time offline between raids.  I know in the really raid-focused guilds I've been in nobody logs on other than an hour or two before raids, then logs right off afterward.  In the casual guilds I found folks on at all hours of the day... and often the same folks. Casuals seem to use it as the focus of their social and entertainment outlet.

Yeah there's a mix of both play style among the groups, but it's a trend I've seen and seen others echo.  If your entertainment is raiding, shiny and killing bosses it doesn't make sense to be online when you're not doing that.  You'll find something else to do in the down time.   If you're playing to spend time with friends you can't see elsewhere, you're going to spend more time there.

[Velorath]

I love how everyone just skipped over the part where he was talking about the speed and pace at which he personally plays and turned it into him making a blanket statement about how long it will take the average player to get through the content.  Hell, Tannhauser says he's spouting bullshit because catasses will totally finish the game quicker (no shit, he never said they wouldn't).

[caladein]

Even if you take that statement at face value, he's implying 20-40 hours of "new content" per month.  It's PR bullshit and/or meaningless PR bullshit all the way around.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Fucking lawl.

[UnSub]

Even if you take that statement at face value, he's implying 20-40 hours of "new content" per month.  It's PR bullshit and/or meaningless PR bullshit all the way around.

He also has to be assuming that players are going to play through every single story arc both times (light and dark side) to make those kind of claims. It raises the issue that BioWare is really underestimating how MMO players use and consume content.

Let's say every class has a 30 hour story line. If you want to play every class through twice, that's (8*30*3=) 720 hours of content, which is going to last a long time at 10 hours a week. If all you care about is being a dark side Jedi Consular, that's just 3 weeks of play time. 'Roll an alt' is a valid suggestion for getting more out of a MMO title, but it certainly isn't something everyone aspires to.

I post these because statements like, "this is the perfect BioWare game" or "MMOs were no fun before we came along" deserve skewering.

[LK]

This was a game that seemed to be made for alts given what is, from my impression, mostly unique storylines between each class.

If someone buys the product and doesn't want to take up 7 / 8 of the content, oh well.

[Rendakor]

In all honesty, do most people play both factions in an MMO? Speaking personally, I've leveled a ton of Horde characters in WoW, but only one Alliance toon. In most MMOs (with hard coded factions) I've played, this has been my experience. Hell, I rarely play both sides of Bioware single-player games either. Am I in the minority?

[Lakov_Sanite]

In all honesty, do most people play both factions in an MMO? Speaking personally, I've leveled a ton of Horde characters in WoW, but only one Alliance toon. In most MMOs (with hard coded factions) I've played, this has been my experience. Hell, I rarely play both sides of Bioware single-player games either. Am I in the minority?

It's because in Mmo's you play with people. You either have friends or you make friends as you level. So now you're max level, do you A)roll another side in which you cant talk to your friends B) level another toon in which all you can do with your friends is chat or C) play with your friends?

Granted if everyone re-rolled it would be a different story and sure not everyone here will make friends or avoid alt-itis but lets not fucking kid ourselves here, most people pick a side and pick a toon and stick with it.

[eldaec]

"Both sides" of a Bioware rpg usually means playing through exactly the same game, and clicking on a different dialog option about 80% of the way through.

If they really mean both sides have an entirely different path, then more people will play both.


The guild/community effect tying you to one realm will also be weaker than usual if the multiplayer aspects are as insubstantial as trailed so far.

[Sjofn]

In all honesty, do most people play both factions in an MMO? Speaking personally, I've leveled a ton of Horde characters in WoW, but only one Alliance toon. In most MMOs (with hard coded factions) I've played, this has been my experience. Hell, I rarely play both sides of Bioware single-player games either. Am I in the minority?

It's because in Mmo's you play with people. You either have friends or you make friends as you level. So now you're max level, do you A)roll another side in which you cant talk to your friends B) level another toon in which all you can do with your friends is chat or C) play with your friends?

Granted if everyone re-rolled it would be a different story and sure not everyone here will make friends or avoid alt-itis but lets not fucking kid ourselves here, most people pick a side and pick a toon and stick with it.

I think WoW has made people a LOT more alt-friendly, because it's relatively painless to level up multiple characters. On the other hand, if it takes forever to level up, people will definitely revert to "pick one character and stick with it."

[Velorath]

I post these because statements like, "this is the perfect BioWare game" or "MMOs were no fun before we came along" deserve skewering.

They certainly would deserve skewering if anybody had actually said them.

[Sjofn]

"If you are a hardcore, traditional Bioware fan - a Mass Effect or especially Dragon Quest fan - this is the dream game," is pretty damn close to saying it's the perfect BioWare game.

[Reg]

Right. So for some reason Bioware guys aren't allowed to say that they're making a game that Bioware fans will like. 

[Velorath]

"If you are a hardcore, traditional Bioware fan - a Mass Effect or especially Dragon Quest fan - this is the dream game," is pretty damn close to saying it's the perfect BioWare game.

 

You know what, fuck it I'm done with this thread.

[Tarami]

The fuck is Dragon Quest? 

[Sjofn]

Right. So for some reason Bioware guys aren't allowed to say that they're making a game that Bioware fans will like. 

I'm not making a fucking judgement on if they should say that or not, I just find Velorath's white knighting to the point where "no man they didn't say it was the perfect game, just a DREAM game!" absurd. There's trying to temper doomsaying (which for the most part I find adorable and silly and over the top) and then there's willing things to be different than they are.

[sam, an eggplant]

What the hell do you expect him to say? He's making a public statement about a product costing hundreds of millions of dollars due to be released in well over a year. I assure you his every word is scrutinized by both LA and EA PR. They probably had lengthy debates on AIM about the precise wording, passing notes along and making revisions. If the quotes came from a live E3 interview, he memorized exact phrases on keycards and practiced them in a full-length mirror for weeks before the convention. You think that dude was speaking off the cuff? That he's a renegade, going off on his own, speaking freely energized by his own enthusiasm for the product? Please. He'd be skewered. You make one little "wookies are treated like black people" joke and it's all over.

Obviously we need to treat prerelease fluff with healthy skepticism. Once they drop NDA (or we see more beta leaks, yes they are out there now, but not from me) you can make up your own mind. Until then, don't take anything anyone says too seriously.

[Reg]

This thread has been nothing but doomsaying for pages now. And as far as I can see it's based on pretty much nothing at all. It's not like you're trying to offset the fanboys. They're noticeably absent.

It's funny watching people all trying to top each other with irrationally negative comments about a game none of you have played yet though.

[Shatter]

This thread has been nothing but doomsaying for pages now. And as far as I can see it's based on pretty much nothing at all. It's not like you're trying to offset the fanboys. They're noticeably absent.

It's funny watching people all trying to top each other with irrationally negative comments about a game none of you have played yet though.

No its everyone trying to predict the downfall of the game and why so they can come back later and say "look I was right". 

[Malakili]

This thread has been nothing but doomsaying for pages now. And as far as I can see it's based on pretty much nothing at all. It's not like you're trying to offset the fanboys. They're noticeably absent.

It's funny watching people all trying to top each other with irrationally negative comments about a game none of you have played yet though.

I actually think its a bunch of hardcore closet Star Wars fans who are upset their favorite series is being made into an MMORPG that doesn't really feel in the spirit of Star Wars.

[Lantyssa]

No, it's KotOR fans upset their game with already poor mechanics is being turned into one with generic MMO mechanics.

[Pezzle]

It could be both.

[Reg]

Really? I'm one of those KOTOR fans and I'll be perfectly happy to solo my way through the game using the MMO strictly for chatting with friends while I enjoy a Bioware style storyline. When I run out of content I'll suspend the subscription and renew when the inevitable expansion comes out.

That's the plan anyway. If the game turns out to be a pile of crap I probably won't buy it at all. I don't buy MMOs when they first come out so I don't get burned.

[sam, an eggplant]

That's my plan as well right now, to play through all the storylines and avoid the MMO stuff.

Widespread negative previews and tester accounts would stop me from buying it at release. But I don't really see that happening; even "B" games like star trek, champs online, and conan received overwhelmingly positive pre-release press and buzz. Hell, conan's buzz was incredibly positive here, as I recall.

[Sjofn]

What the hell do you expect him to say? He's making a public statement about a product costing hundreds of millions of dollars due to be released in well over a year. I assure you his every word is scrutinized by both LA and EA PR. They probably had lengthy debates on AIM about the precise wording, passing notes along and making revisions. If the quotes came from a live E3 interview, he memorized exact phrases on keycards and practiced them in a full-length mirror for weeks before the convention. You think that dude was speaking off the cuff? That he's a renegade, going off on his own, speaking freely energized by his own enthusiasm for the product? Please. He'd be skewered. You make one little "wookies are treated like black people" joke and it's all over.

Obviously we need to treat prerelease fluff with healthy skepticism. Once they drop NDA (or we see more beta leaks, yes they are out there now, but not from me) you can make up your own mind. Until then, don't take anything anyone says too seriously.

I don't expect him to say anything but "this game ruuuuuuuuuulez" but I also don't expect people to insist he's said something less than "this game ruuuuuuuuuuuulez." That was my only point, that gibbering he wasn't saying this game was Robot Jesus, merely Robot MOSES, is completely asinine.

I am, personally, cheerfully giving the game the benefit of the doubt, since no one asked. But that doesn't mean I need to squawk that the overinflated pre-game hype isn't exactly that.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I was right about WAR and AoC, just sayin.